AKRON, Ohio – The Akron History Center, which celebrates the city’s 200-year history, opens Saturday, April 5.
The $2.2-million history center spans three floors and includes more than 60 exhibits and 100 historic artifacts. Video screens tell stories of the city’s people, businesses and places.
Museum admission is free. It’s located at 172 S. Main St.
The center is housed in a building that is more than a century old and still features original floors, according to David Lieberth, president of the non-profit corporation that raised the funds to create the center’s exhibits. The building initially housed a meat market beginning in 1909.
The history center’s lower level overlooks Lock 4 and highlights the city’s topography, the Ohio & Erie Canal, and Akron’s founding on Dec. 6, 1825, by General Simon Perkins and Paul Williams. An exhibit on the Perkins family showcases personal artifacts from Perkins, including his surveying compass and his flintlock pistols.
The history center’s lower level also includes exhibits on abolitionists John Brown and Sojourner Truth, along with Civil War artifacts.
“One of the interesting things about the museum is the fact that in 2013 we had some trees blow down on the Perkins Mansion site and the John Brown site and so we had the trees hauled away. A year later, the guy who I contacted to do this work returned with a stack of lumber, oak and maple and poplar and beech, and it was all milled, cut and aged. So when we started the project, I asked Communication Exhibits, Inc. to incorporate some of that wood into the exhibits. As it turned out, they incorporated all the wood, all of this wood that you see in all of these panels on the canal exhibit as well, all the century-old timber grown on the estate of Akron’s founding father,” Lieberth said.
The history center’s middle level, “Boomtown,” pays homage to Akron’s manufacturing legacy. Exhibits highlight the city’s innovations in clay products, cereal, farm machinery, rubber and polymer products, aviation, publishing, fishing tackle, children’s books, metalworking and healthcare.
The “Akron’s Thirst for Sobriety” exhibit touches on the role of alcoholism recovery in local history and the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron in 1935. The exhibit features the office door that belonged to AA co-founder Dr. Bob Smith.
“Dr. Bob treated medically about 5,000 alcoholics between 1935 and his death in 1950. We’re very fortunate to have this door to Dr. Bob’s office. He had multiple offices over that period of 35 years, so we’re not sure which office this door is from, but clearly it’s the door to his office,” Lieberth said.
The center’s “Lighter Than Air” area includes exhibits on the Guggenheim Airship Institute, and the development of airships USS Akron and Macon. Artifacts on display include girders made for the USS Akron that have been loaned to the center.
The “Rubber Room” features rubber flooring and Art Deco design details reminiscent of the old Portage Hotel. The exhibit features tires of the past and additional rubber products made in Akron, along with video screens that capture stories of the immigrants who came to Akron to work and the founding of the United Rubber Workers Union.
The center’s Main Street level includes exhibits that pay homage to famous Akronites, businesses such as Firestone, Goodyear and GoJo, and Akron’s music legacy.
An interactive race-tire game exhibit hosted by Goodyear allows participants to experience the challenge of designing racing tires.
“Rhythms of the Rubber City” displays the collection of music artifacts donated by the Akron Sound Museum to the library. The exhibit covers Akron’s music history from 1890 to the modern day.
“Akron was the midway point between Chicago and New York. We had something called Little Harlem on Howard Street, which was lined with jazz clubs. All the greats came through and when they came here they stayed at the Matthews Hotel and played at the clubs on Howard Street as well as the Armory and other places in the city,” Librarian Caitlyn Conley said.
Conley is a local history and museum specialist for the Akron-Summit County Public Library who will oversee the history center and coordinate staffing for the center’s volunteers.
The museum’s “20 Steps to Social Justice” exhibit is a staircase that connects the museum’s floors and memorializes the city’s 200-year journey in racial and gender equity, women’s rights, the abolition of slavery, the development of public education, the establishment of organized labor, and the rights of the disabled and victims of crime.
The history center is operated by the Akron-Summit County Public Library in partnership with the Summit County Historical Society and the nonprofit Akron History Center, Inc. The center will be open Wednesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in April.
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